MCP claims Chakwera won Malawi presidential race

Malawi Congress Party (MCP) citing figures from the party’s tally centre, claimed on Saturday that its presidential candidate Lazarus Chakwera was the winner in the May 20 presidential elections as opposed to earlier unofficial media reports and Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) preliminary results indicating Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) president Peter Mutharika,
MCP made the claims as a news conference at the party’s headquarters in Lilongwe.

“Figures collected from our monitors on the ground show that it is MCP that has won the elections,” said MCP secretary general Gustav Kaliwo, a lawyer.

Kaliwo was addressing journalists in the presence of Chakwera who was accompanied by his running mate and party vice president Richard Msowoya and spokesperson Jessie Kabwila.

Gustav Kaliwo: Chakwera won the polls

Msowoya said as it stands now, there is no way for a party which was indicated to have won 76 seats in Parliament, could have lost the presidency.

“In any way, it is MCP that has won the elections,” he said,

Kabwira said the MCP supporters were restraining themselves, saying they know Chakwera is the winner of Tuesday’s vote.

“Just because we are very quiet we should not be mistaken that we don’t know that we have won the elections. We are keeping quite not because we are not at pain but because we care for this country, said Kabwila.

“We are holding our patience and waiting patiently but it is not easy, we have been tested but we are still quiet because we follow the constitution.

“We don’t want to do what others are doing because we know that two wrongs never make
One right,” she said.

Earlier on, Chakwela called on the party supporters to remain calm in what he termed as ‘trying times’

He nonetheless claimed that he had credible information that MCP is the one leading in the polls.

Chakwera has since accused the MEC of going ahead with vote counting without paying attention to other parties’ complaints.

MCP demanded that MEC let political parties verify the preliminary elections results it released on Friday night.

The party’s presser came before the MEC announced that it would physically recount the election results.

MEC Chairperson Maxon Mbendera told MBC radio that the MEC has discovered “grave and serious anomalies, such as in Mangochi there were about 39,000 registered voters but over 180,000 voted.”

“Through the results management system, the commission has identified 19 polling centers of the 1,333 processed so far, where the number of votes cast at polling centers have exceeded the number of registered voters at the polling centers,” said Mbendera.

Mbendera said the results will be investigated through the commission’s audit systems. It will take 25 days to recount manually, said the MEC chairperson.–(Additional reporting by Wanga Gwede, Nyasa Times)